Essential Oil Essential to Perfumes

By April | August 30, 2007

Essential oil, used in aromatherapy as well as perfumes, is extracted from herbs, flowers and fruits in several ways.

# 1 Distillation is the process whereby the flowers or herbs are placed on a screen within an enclosed vessel. As the steam passes up through the flowers it breaks open the cells which include the essential oils. The oil evaporates and is carried up with the water droplets within the steam. As the water condenses it is collected. The oil is lighter than water is separated. It can take several hundred pounds of roses for example, to extract one ounce of rose essential oil. Making essential rose oil one of the most expensive essential oils. The water that is left has uses and retains the scent of the material.

# 2 Cold pressing is another method. This is used to extract essential oils from citrus fruits. The fruit is scared (pricked) over it’s surface releasing the oil from the pouches within the skin of the fruit. The whole fruit is pressed then releasing the oil and the juice. The oil rises to the top of the juice and separated by centrifugation.

# 3 Flowers such as jasmine and tuberose are so delicate or have such a low amount of essential oil that heating the blossoms by steam would destroy the petals before the oil is released. Enfleurage is time consuming and expensive. However it is the one method that can be performed at home. Flower petals are placed on trays of odorless vegetable or animal fat. The fat absorbs the oil from the flowers. Every day the old petals are removed and replaced with fresh ones. This process continues until the fat is saturated with the essential oil. For home uses the highly scented oil/fat can be used as is. For commercial perfumes adding alcohol to the enfleurage mixtures separates the essential oil from the vegetable of animal fat.

# 4 Solvent extraction is less time consuming than enfleurage. A chemical such as hexane is used to saturate the plant materials and draw out the essential oils. The oils and the hexane form a compound called a concrete. Alcohol mixes with the concrete and as the alcohol evaporates it takes the hexane with it and the remaining substance is essential oil. The disadvantage is that it is nearly impossible to remove all the hexane.